Oil exploration companies involved in the drilling, completion and production phases of oil and gas well installations use hundreds, if not thousands, of down-hole tools such as tubulars, drill bits, mud motors, power packs, etc. while drilling, exploring and completing oil and gas wells. Some technologies have been utilized in the recent past to help such companies log individual tools into inventory; track usage of individual tools in drilling, completion and production operations; and ultimately record the removal of individual tools from inventory when their usefulness has expired.
There have been systems created for managing inventories of down-hole tools or assets that are used in the drilling, completion, and production phases of oil and gas wells. In some such systems, a passive silicon chip RFID tag is installed on each asset and recorded or logged in inventory. By providing each tool or asset with an RFID tag, the asset can be tracked throughout its useful life. One example of such a system for managing inventories comprising down-hole tools used in drilling, completion and production of oil and gas wells is discussed in U.S. Publication No. 2009/0055293. One drawback of silicon chip RFID devices is their inability to withstand the vibration on high temperatures associated with down-hole environments.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,602,106 discloses a radio frequency identification (RFID) piezoelectric device package comprising a plethora of components including a hermetically sealed device header that contains the piezoelectric device, which is then installed into the bottom of a radome along with an RF antenna, along with an impedance matching network and other elements. A drawback of such a device is the manufacturing complexity and the number of parts required to assemble the requisite piezoelectric RFID device.
As such, what is needed is an improved down-hole asset tagging device package that can withstand the high pressures, high temperatures as well as the acidic and caustic environments that exist in the down-hole portions of oil and gas wells and that is less complex and less expensive to manufacture than previous devices.